Thursday, October 22, 2009

The garden is bursting





My bed of broccoli, collards and cabbage is bursting at the seams. The plants are huge and beautiful. Here you see the broccoli in the far back, the dark green heading collards next, the pale green cabbage collards, and, finally, the savoy cabbages. Pests have been kept to a minimum by the work of the lizards and birds, with no real intervention from me. For dinner last night I picked the largest, outer leaves from both Morris heading collards and cabbage collards, stacked them, rolled them, cut them into small shreds (across the rib, so no need to pull the ribs out), and then stir fried them with some hot pepper slices. What a spectacular vegetable dish.

The second bed has those amazing lettuces to do so well only this time of the year. It is tender and beautiful, both red leaf varieties and green butterhead types. The back of the bed is, however, a bit of a problem: the kale seeds I purchased turned out to be mustard greens! Now I like mustard greens ok, but I love kale. I am weighing whether to pull it all out and plant kale, but know that I risk not getting a good stand because it is now so late in the season. What to do?? I'll let you know what I decide.